Former Dutch envoy to hold lecture on Bedouin culture and poetry in Riyadh

Marcel Kurpershoek

RIYADH: The Netherlands Embassy will hold a lecture on Bedouin culture and poetry on Monday night in Riyadh.
Dutch Ambassador Joost Reintjes said the lecture, titled “The Last Bedouin,” will be delivered by Marcel Kurpershoek, former Dutch deputy ambassador to Saudi Arabia and former ambassador to Turkey, Pakistan and Poland.
“Dr. Marcel Kurpershoek... will be in Riyadh to give a presentation about Arabian Bedouin culture and poetry,” Reintjes said in a statement.
Kupershoek’s desert adventures began 30 years ago when he became a Dutch diplomat to the Kingdom. In a span of four years, he familiarized himself with Bedouin poetry and dialect, and established cordial relations with local tribesmen.
In a documentary, the former ambassador recalled his Saudi desert expeditions. “It is my homeland… I sometimes regard myself a Bedouin,” he said.
He added: “When I am in the Netherlands during winter season and it gets dark, and people are in a hurry to go to work, my thoughts take me back to Al-Nefud desert and the Arabian Peninsula.”
Al-Nefud desert is in the northern part of the Arabian Peninsula, occupying a great oval depression.
In Arabic, Kurpershoek at one point narrated a poetic verse from a famous pre-Islamic ode by Imru’ Al-Qais, considered the father of Arabic poetry; Al-Qais was an Arab poet in the 6th century, and the son of one of the last Kindite kings.
Kurpershoek is said to be the first westerner to visit ad-Dakhul and Hawmal, the two mountains mentioned in Imru’ Al-Qais’ ode.
He said his expedition made him understand that in Arabic poetry, “everything holds a meaning.”